Roommates From Hell: Real, Scary Stories

From college dorms to apartment living, having a roommate (or two or three) is pretty much an inevitable part of a person's life.

Sometimes it works out great. Everyone gets along, takes turns cleaning, always pays the bills on time, hangs out whenever they can. You'll hardly ever be lonely and have someone to come home to. Sometimes roommates can even turn out to be new best friends.

On the other hand, roommates can be walking/talking nightmares. Roommates who commit so many everyday living sins that in no way could you imagine anyone willingly cohabiting with them, as they were just strangers to you on Craigslist who happened to know how to write a good email.

Living with these people can be detrimental to your pride and create stress, annoyance, thoughts of homicide, and awesome stories. Here are some of the comments we got from our informal roommates from hell survey.

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Safety first? "My roommate would leave all of the doors open. Not unlocked. Physically open. Sober."

Um, call 911. "I had a roommate who wanted to bring a convicted felon into our apartment. He knew the convict for just two months. Mind you, this felon was being sentenced in about three weeks."

Fare thee well, personal property. "My roommate from college would borrow my clothes and not give them back. I'd see her on campus in my stuff every day. I guess she thought my sweat pants I let her use one night meant she could keep them and cut holes in the sides to fit her."

They're called boundaries, people. "I walked in on my roommate freshman year of college having sex with her boyfriend on my desk chair. I made her buy a bottle of disinfectant."

A deserving cheapskate. "I had a roommate who refused to buy anything for the apartment. So one day I decided to take my toilet paper out of the bathroom and start carrying it with me every time I had to go. Didn't tell her about it, and cheered secretly when I heard her go in and not be able to find any TP. Though I guess this technically makes me a roommate from hell too."

Turn it off! "He would leave food in the oven for like five hours on 400 degrees. Hello, gas bill."

Didn't his mom ever teach him? "He refuses to wash the dishes with soap. I watch him put the dishes back in the cabinet like they're clean, and then I take them out in front of his face and put them back in the sink."

Newsflash: If you have a pet, take care of it. "My roommate was so irresponsible and refused to take care of her dog. She wouldn't have food for the dog because she 'couldn't afford it.' I'd be like ummm, you just bought $200 worth of clothes at Macy's. I had to buy it because I ended up feeling so sorry for the dog."

Security deposit? What's that? "When we had to pay rent, my roommate gave me half of what she owes. She told me to take the rest out of her security deposit. Buh? That is not how a security deposit works."

You need a Valium, dear. "Every single day, when she got home from work, she'd immediately go to her room and then stand outside the bathroom in her towel tapping her foot, waiting for me to get done if I were in there, as if she fell and rolled around in a pile of mud while working 8 hours at her office job."

Omg, clean up your crap. "My roommate was such a huge slob. I'd find week-old pizza boxes, bowls filled with congealed sludge since he never washed them out, piles and piles of dirty, muddy, smelly clothes up to the invisible line that divided our room (we had to share a room, it was awesome). I have him to owe for being the clean freak I am today."

Showers, unfortunately, aren't for dogs. "One of my roommates thought it'd be a brilliant idea to wash his dirty a** dog in the shower. Huge mounds of dirt and clumps of hair were everywhere in the shower and drain and on the bath mat. And I had to clean it up myself."

Oh, mental image ... "One of my friends, who lived with a guy he met on Craigslist, walked into his apartment after going for a run and heard the shower running. All of a sudden, three men he didn't know walked out of the bathroom in towels."

Shut up! I can hear you! "I had a roommate in New York who would have the loudest. Sex. Ever. You could even hear them banging against the wall. Sometimes when my friends and I were drunk, we'd time them to see how long he could last."